RPS launches online meal-ordering service

Students can now order food through Residential Programs and Services’ new online program to avoid lines and the hustle and bustle of crowds in the dining halls and food courts.

E-meal is an online food ordering system created for anyone with an RPS meal plan, including faculty and staff. To utilize this service, an account must be created online before proceeding to place an order.

Currently, there are four locations and five dining facilities with select menu items available to order through E-meal.

Traditions Catering and The Carousel in Forest Quadrangle, Ballantine Cafe in Ballantine Hall, Wright Food Court in Wright Quad and Gresham Food Court at Foster Quad are the five dining halls that have E-meal pick-up locations.

“The whole point of it is for convenience and to reduce the lines in the food court and to be another option for customers to enhance the dining experience,” Mark Winstead, Wright Food Court manager, said.

Pat Connor, RPS executive director, created the E-meal program after he witnessed the use and success of E-meal at other universities.

System Assistant of Dining Services Bradley Hayden spearheaded the program with a team effort.

Prior to E-meal’s Feb. 9 debut, a team of students and student dining employees completed a test trial offering Hayden feedback for improvement, and because of the feedback, pickup hours have been extended.

To sign up for E-meal, anyone with an RPS meal plan can go to https://indiana.webfood.com and create an account.

After creating an account, students can select the preferred location and menu items, then choose the most convenient pickup time from the designated time slots available and proceed to checkout.

“It was extremely easy to use, quite straightforward,” said Greir Flynn, senior and supervisor at Gresham Food Court.

Ballantine Cafe, which always has a line out the door, has the highest number of orders for E-meal, followed by The Carousel, Hayden said. Initially the average was five to 10 orders per day, but that has now jumped to 25 to 50 per day throughout all the venues.

The popularity rating online for E-meal went from 8.7 to 11.1 percent in just four days. Director of Dining Services Sandra Fowler attributes the low popularity rate to the lack of marketing in the beginning stages.

“We wanted to make sure all procedures were in place before we started marketing it,”
Fowler said.

Now that the number of orders is on the rise, RPS staff has already begun expanding its marketing efforts by setting up table tents, posting flyers in RPS dormitories, adding digital signage on local TV and an ad in the In Touch weekly newsletter, Hayden and Fowler said.

For freshman Andrea Wolf, E-meal is very beneficial, but one of its drawbacks is the $1 transaction fee for every order placed online.

“I think it’s a new avenue for students to cope with the fast lifestyle of a college student,” said Jose Fajardo, Traditions Catering general manager.